Tag Archives: Rocket Italian

Rocket Italian Review

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What is Rocket Italian ?

Rocket Italian is an Italian learning course. It is unique from many other language courses in that you download it from the Internet. It takes around 30 minutes to download with a broadband Internet  connection.

There is also the option to have the hard copy version of the course shipped to you but this is far more expensive than the download version and the content of both are the same.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

This is what you get with Rocket Italian :

An Interactive PDF course
An Audio course
3 Educational games

A survival kit
Access to a forum
Follow up lessons from time to time

The rest of this review will cover the Interactive PDF course as the other components are covered in other posts. See the Learning Lounge for how the course is taught and see how the audio works for details of the audio component of the course.

What level is Rocket Italian ?

The course is aimed at people with no knowledge of Italian. It takes them from beginner through to an intermediate level of the Italian language.

How does it teach Italian ?

The course comprises 29 lessons.

The lessons relate to the audio course so they follow the same themes and topics. The PDF interactive course is not just a transcript of the audio (although a separate transcript of the audio is also provided). It gives more background to the audios. It explains points of grammar and introduces vocabulary.

Each lesson can take around 30 minutes to an hour, depending on your skill level and knowledge of the topic being covered.

The lesson can be read online or downloaded in a PDF format.

How is a lesson taught ?

The topic of the lesson is introduced along with any new Italian words. The student will read through the introduction. Any Italian words can be clicked on and the audio for the word will be heard. The word is clicked you will hear the English equivalent, then the Italian. Then there is a pause and the Italian is spoken again. This gives the student a chance to speak the Italian and practice what he/she is learning.

More examples will be given of the topic and examples of how it is used.

The Culture tab gives you a slice of Italian life or maybe a famous landmark to read about. You won’t learn all there is to know about Italy but it’s a bot of a starter.

Visting an Italian Market

A variety of written and multiple choice type exercises conclude each lesson when you click the My Level tab.

Test Your Knowledge

Another feature of the course that gives it an interactive quality is the random button. You can press the random button at any time and a Italian sentence or word from the current lesson will be spoken.

So you can practice conversation and comprehension for this particular lesson by speaking and understanding the random audios. It can also give the student a bit of control over the lesson.

Any other teaching methods used ?

The three games are accessed through the PDF course. The games are already covered in some detail but here is the basic outline :

MegaVocab – vocabulary recognition, match one of 6 pictures to a word picked at random by the software.

A Vocabulary Game

MegaVerbs – verb conjugation, conjugate a verb in the correct person and tense. There are 20 questions within each game and the software can select any verbs it has in the system.

MegaAudio – comprehension, listen to audio of a word or sentence and guess which of the 4 pictures represent the audio.

A set of flashcards are also provided. These are a set of pictures with the Italian/English meaning underneath. There are 250 of these cards but they need to be printed out to use.

Flashcards - Practice your vocabulary

What can you say at the End of the Course ?

The course covers present, past and future tenses. It also goes into reflexive verbs to some extent. You will learn about washing and dressing yourself for instance.

The main verb groups are covered, so examples of

-ARE (Arrivare)
-ERE (Leggere)
-IRE (Dormire) verbs are presented.

Once you understand how these forms of verbs are conjugated, you will find that you know how to conjugate 80% of all Italian verbs. It’s just a case of learning what each verb is and means. This will take time and no course can truly teach you all the verbs of a language. Ultimately practice and everyday use will expose you to the words you need to use.

The imperfect tense is also introduced along side forming the past tense with have and to be. And some of the main irregular verbs are taught.

Other aspects of grammar like pronouns, adjectives and adverbs are covered. For English speakers, positioning these elements in a sentence is often difficult because it is totally different to English. So this is an important series of lessons.

The course also features some cultural lessons when you click on the culture tab.

At the end of the course you will be able to say things like “Please Helen, set the table! It’s nearly 12 pm, time to cook the pasta sauce and the family will be here!”.

What is good about the course ?

The course starts from beginner through to advanced.

The verb conjugation game is useful, as learning the forms of the verbs can get quite boring and tedious.

Random button is good for adding a bit of spontaneity to the lesson. This is useful if you have done the lesson more than once and need to freshen it up a little.

What is bad about the course ?

The pictures in the MegaVocab game are not always intuitively clear about the meaning. This can make guessing the words quite difficult at times. The English word can be displayed if this happens but doing this makes it too easy.

You can only improve your pronunciation by listening and repeating the audio, no feedback is given by the software as to how your accent sounds.

Any bonuses ?

A good way to see how the course works is to try the free 6 day course. It should help you decide if Rocket Italian suits your learning style and you will learn a bit of Italian along the way.

A Rocket Italian newsletter is sent out every fortnight. The newsletter has a new lesson or extra material in each issue.

Summary

I think the Rocket Italian course represents good value. You get an Audio and ebook course and 3 software games. The forum and follow up newsletter are good if you need a bit of support and to stay motivated. Although it is not easy learning a new language, Rocket Italian can certainly make the task easier provided you use it consistently and put the effort in to learn Italian.

>>> Get your own Rocket Italian course here <<<

Transparent Italian Complete Edition VS Rocket Italian: Which Program Should You Choose?

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So you want to learn Italian but you don’t know where to begin. The first step to being able to speak this beautiful language is choosing the right Italian language learning program.

However, with the number of programs on the market today that have different approaches, features, and tools, it is easy to get confused.

To help you out a bit, here is a review and comparison of two of the more widely used programs. Notably, Transparent Italian and Rocket Italian. So without further a do, here is Transparent Italian Complete Edition VS Rocket Italian – which program should you choose?

The Approach

The people behind Rocket Italian believe that the best way to learn a language is through the interactive conversational approach, aka, the natural approach. This method is based on how people all around the world have learned their mother tongue way back when they were young. Children learn to understand, listen, and speak before they learn how to read and write. So at the very first lesson, you will already take part in an Italian conversation.

Transparent Italian Complete Edition, however, takes a rather different approach. The creators and developers believe that it is very important to use all of your skills, from speaking to listening to reading and writing, in order to achieve your goal of speaking the Italian language fluently. So the method behind this program is highly modular and is filled with tons of features that focus on developing different skills.

The Learning Tools and Features

Rocket Italian

The Grammar Lessons

With Rocket Italian, you will have your very own personal tutor/guide, Maria Di Lorenzi to take you through all of these neat features and help you out along the way.

Rocket Italian offers you 29 interactive audio lessons that are 28 minutes each in length. In total, that is around 13 hours altogether. Over these classes you will have real life modern Italian conversations that have a casual tone to them so that you will actually be able to use what learn on the streets of Italy. You can even customize these classes so that you learn what you want when you want. Aside from that, all are fully downloadable so that you can learn wherever you want whenever you want by using your iPod, pocket pc, or MP3 player. Not to mention that the full transcripts of the classes are also provided to help you out even more.

MegaItalian is designed to add a little fun to your daily study schedule. Here you will have three games that are supposed to reinforce what you have already learned and even build up on it.

MegaVocab is for your Italian vocabulary.

MegaAudio is for your Italian listening, pronunciation, and intonation.

MegaVerbs is for your Italian verbs and verb forms such as tenses.

Through the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge you will have access to fully illustrated Italian language lessons that will further explain certain things such as grammar, as well as Italian history and culture classes. All are fully embedded with audio clips and are complete with detailed notes.

With Rocket Record, you will be able to record your voice and compare to that of over 1000 phrases spoken by a native Italian speaker. They claim that this will do wonders for your Italian pronunciation as well as your Italian intonation.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

Transparent Italian Complete Edition

With Transparent Italian Complete Edition, you begin the learning process with their acclaimed Byki. Here you will have access to neat tools that are all designed make Italian easy for you. One of the most important feature is the flashcards that is supposed to build up your vocabulary in no time. Aside from that, you will also have access to other games and quizzes, all which will be recorded in order for you to keep track of your progress. Heck, you will also be able to record your voice so that you can compare it to a true blue Italian’s.

Start By Opening The Virtual Book

The Lexicon Translation Dictionary will give you access to over 65,000 Italian words that you will probably come across here and there. This is yet another feature that is designed to help you build up you vocabulary base.

Unlike Rocket Italian, this program will focuses not only on your verbal skills but also you written Italian through the use of Italian texts, stories, and videos.

The Flashcard system is the recommended start point

One feature that is unique to Transparent Italian is LinguMatch Italian. This gives you full access to 30 virtual reality scenarios that you actually take part in. It is kind of like an RPG of sorts where you can ask questions and answer them as well. You can click on other characters to start a conversation or simply click on objects to learn how they are called in Italian.

LinguaMatch - A Bit Like A Role Playing Game

>>> Get Transparent Italian Here <<<

What You will learn

With Rocket Italian, you will have Conversation practice, grammar, and listening comprehension.

Transparent Italian Complete Edition covers all of that- Conversation practice, grammar, and listening comprehension, and more as you will also focus on reading and writing.

To Sum Up

Basically, if you only want to focus on conversational Italian, then Rocket Italian is perfect for you, but if you want to go the whole nine yards, then Transparent Italian Complete Edition would be a better choice.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

>>> Get Transparent Italian Here <<<

Rocket Italian Or Fluenz Italian: Which Is Best For You?

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Do you want to learn Italian, one of the most beautiful languages in the world, but have no idea where to begin? Learning a new language is tricky enough, but choosing the right language learning program is even more confusing since there are so many on the market that all promise to be the best.
But how can they all be the best when they are all different? It’s just a matter of finding which method and approach suit your learning style. So here are two of the hottest selling programs that have very different styles. Rocket Italian Or Fluenz Italian: Which Is Best For You?

Rocket Italian

Rocket Italian Dashboard

The approach that Rocket Italian takes is the interactive conversational approach. So, basically, if you think you learn best the “natural” way, the this is definitely the program for you. By “natural”, the developers behind Rocket Languages believe that people learn best the way they did when they were young- through listening and speaking. Every child learned how to understand and speak way before reading and writing.

So the Rocket Italian approach is based on this method integrated with features and tools that are supposed to speed up the learning process and make things easier for you, the student.

Learning tools and features

With Rocket Italian, you will get 29 interactive audio lessons that last around 28 minutes each class. These classes cover casual and modern Italian conversations that you will actually be able to use in a real life Italian conversation, all of which can be customized to suit each person’s specific needs and wants. That alone already promises you over 13 hours of audio for your learning pleasure. Plus all of them are fully downloadable too making it easy to take along with your MP3 player, iPhone, pocket PC and the like.

You will even have access to complete transcripts of every single Italian conversation that you hear. This is supposed to help speed up the learning process, not only for speaking but it also gives you a look on the written area, even if that is not the focus of this course.

Rocket Italian Learning Lounge will provide you with further language lessons as well as Italian culture and history ones too. All of these are fully illustrated, are embedded with audio clips, and have notes and explanations that are aimed to help you even more.

You can have fun with MegaItalian. This offers three games that are designed to help you out with certain areas of the language in a not so stressful way.

MegaAudio is supposed to help you with your listening and comprehension.

MegaVocab is for building up your vocabulary and actually retaining what you have learned.

MegaVerbs is to help teach verbs forms and conjugation.

Another interesting feature is Rocket Record that allows you to compare your own voice and pronunciation with over 1000 Italian phrases.
Through this all you will be guided by Maria and Roberto, two native Italian speakers.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

Fluenz Italian

Sonia is the Tutor in the early courses

The people behind Fluenz Italian believe in a much different approach from that of Rocket Italian. Actually, their method is pretty much the opposite. They believe that since you, the student, is no longer a child, you will need to take the more adult approach to learning the language.

This means that you will have full explanations on all of the areas of the language in order for you to be able to speak Italian fluently. Or in their own words, you leverage your understanding of English to make your learning of Italian more efficient.  So things are explained from an English perspective and as Italian grammar is often very different from English, the differences are pointed out. To this extent, Fluenz is probably more aimed at an adult learner. Also the scenes and scenarios that take place in the course are generally in bars, hotels and consist of things that adults might do.

Learning tools and features

Fluenz Italian offers interactive audio CDs with lessons that are around 60 minutes long. Unlike other language learning programs, the classes here are much longer because not only will you get to hear an Italian conversation, but you will also get full tutor led explanations in step by step process.

One of the focuses of these one on one explanations that is supposed to be very helpful is Italian contractions as well as rhythm and intonation. One reason why Italian sounds as beautiful as it does is because of these.

Also, you can take Fluenz Italian anywhere by uploading the audio files to your iPod, MP3 player, and the like.

You will also have access to various workouts that are designed to help you develop your Italian skills – complete from reading to writing to speaking to listening comprehension.

These workouts are generally done after each lesson and focus on the topics, words and grammar covered in the lesson. They test your ability to read, write, listen (comprehend) and to some extent speak.

So they make you match the Italian words and sentences in the lesson to the English equivalents. You also have to match a picture to a spoken Italian word (a bit like MegaAudio in Rocket Italian).

Fluenz Italian Workouts - Test your knowledge after the lesson

Then write the English words displayed or spoken in Italian,

Write the English phrases in Italian,

Write the Italian words after listening to them spoken,

Write the Italian phrases after listening to them spoken,

Type out the conversation or the entire scene pretty much

The final 2 tests are to match phrases that are using the same words in the lesson but in slightly different contexts to the original lesson. And then to say the phrases out loud – repeat after the native Italian speaker. Your speech is recorded and you can listen to how it sounds compared to a native speaker. There is no graphical representation, you just have to use you ear.

Two other interesting learning tools that you get are the Fluenz Italian navigator and the voice recorder, mentioned above.

The Fluenz navigator gives you quick access to vocabulary and phrases.

The voice recorder, is different from many other courses that offer pronunciation tools. They don’t give you a graphical representation of your voice compared to a native speaker. You just have to listen for yourself and make adjustments as you see fit. I don’t mind this approach as I find the graphical representations a bit dry and hard to apply to improving your accent. In fact the best pronunciation tool I have seen is the Tell Me More  course that actually have a animation of a persons lips and tongue when they say certain words or phrases. This is how we learn in the real world – by watching how others say things.

One more interesting feature is the interface. The whole layout of this program is just so darn pretty and user friendly.

>>> Get your own Fluenz Italian course here <<<

Conclusion

Basically, when it all boils down to Rocket Italian Or Fluenz Italian: Which Is Best For You, you have to think about what you want to learn, whether it is just speaking and listening or if you want the whole nine yards, and how you want to learn, the natural way or the more traditional approach.

So here are all the facts, now all you have to do is decide.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

>>> Get the Fluenz Italian course here <<<

How To Learn Italian: Rocket Italian VS Pimsleur Italian

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Learning a second language is always a great choice. Learning Italian is an even better one since it is one of the most widely spoken languages in Europe, not to mention that it is by far one of the most beautiful. But choosing the right Italian language learning program is one crucial decision that is not so easy to make.

With so many courses available on the market today, it is easy to get lost in all of the flashy ads and sales talk. So here to help you is an article featuring two of the most popular programs in an unbiased review of sorts, totally honest with nothing but the facts.
How To Learn Italian: Rocket Italian VS Pimsleur Italian. Read the article, consider the facts, make a decision.

The Rocket Italian Approach:

Just like its other language courses, Rocket Italian takes the interactive conversational approach, also known as the natural approach. Basically, this method is based on one that has been tried and tested and proven to be successful for years on end. One that you, me, and basically everyone has tried. Back when you were young, you first learned how to listen, understand what you were told, and speak way before you started reading and writing.

So the people behind Rocket Italian took this method and integrated other features and tools to make the approach more effective, especially since you, the student, are no longer a child.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

Pimsleur Italian Approach:

Also developed by Dr. Paul Pimsleur, linguistic specialist, Pimsleur Italian basically takes the same approach as all the other Pimsleur language courses but tweaked to fit this specific language better.

The Pimsleur approach is based on two main principles, Graduated Interval Recall and Principle of Anticipation, and supported by two other key factors, core vocabulary and the organic learning concept.

Graduated Interval Recall means that you will be encouraged to remember Italian words and phrases the very minute you start to forget them while the Principle of anticipation is pretty much you guessing and anticipating the right answer briefly before it is revealed in the lessons.

You will also build up your core vocabulary which is a selected list of the most important and useful Italian words using the organic learning concept which pretty much means that you will learn everything from vocab to grammar to pronunciation and intonation while learning common Italian phrases.

>>> Get the Pimsleur Italian course here <<<

Rocket Italian Features and Tools:

Rocket Italian comes with 29 interactive audio lessons that are 28 minutes each in length and focus only on casual, everyday, modern Italian conversations led by your Italian tutors, Maria and Roberto. You can fully customize these lessons so that you focus on what you really need and want to learn. All of these Rocket Italian interactive lessons are 100% downloadable so that you can learn pretty much wherever you want. All you have to do is put the files in your iPod, MP3 player, or pocket pc and you are good to go.

Not to mention that the full transcripts of all of the conversations are also provided to help the entire learning process.

Aside from the 13 hours of conversational audio lessons, you will also have classes on the Italian language and the Italian culture and history as well. The Italian language lessons will provide you with more detailed explanations on certain aspects such as grammar and structure and whatnot while the culture and history lessons will give you a deeper insight on Italy on the whole. All of these are fully illustrated and come complete with embedded audio clips and notes that you can access through the Rocket Italian Learning Lounge.

Rocket Record is an interesting feature that they claim will greatly improve your Italian pronunciation and intonation. What you do is record your own voice following a certain phrase or sentence then you compare it to one spoken by a true blue Italian speaker.

To add a little fun, you have MegaItalian.

MegaItalian provides you with three fun and interesting games that are all designed to help you learn vocabulary, practice listening pronunciation and intonation, and learn verbs and conjugation. You have MegaVocab, MegaAudio, and MegaVerbs.

Pimsleur Italian Features and Tools:

Pimsleur Italian keeps things simple as it isn’t jam packed with various tools and features. Basically, you will have an audio course. In the first ten lessons you will learn the basics, the following ten you will actually build and expand on what you have previously covered. All of these lessons come on CD but you also have the choice to download them to your iPod or MP3 player so that you can learn on the go. Plus, since each lessons is only about 30 minutes long, it is easy to squeeze it into any hectic schedule.

To help you along the way, since you will be speaking and taking part in an Italian conversation right off the bat, you will also have a short textbook.

To Sum Up

If you want something with more tools and features, then Rocket Italian is the obvious choice, but if you like to keep your learning simple, then you should opt for Pimsleur Italian.

>>> Go to the Rocket Italian website now <<<

>>> Get the Pimsleur Italian course here <<<